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Amazon announce the setting up of their own Film making enterprise, a completely pluralistic exercise that has been tried before with little success. The idea is to let the public decide what films they want to see, and therefore what should be made. But this is just a mini version of the Hollywood system (What’s selling today? Quick! Make more of them!) It doesn’t work on a small scale, in exactly the same way it doesn’t always work on a large scale. Read the rest of this entry →

Speaking last night at the debate Women in Television – Is it a Young Girl’s Game? organised by Bafta and the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television festival, Shaps, now chairman of the National Film and Television School board, urged firm action on the issue.

Shaps, the only male panellist, said he was “horrified” by statistics compiled by Skillset, the sector’s training body, which show that 5,000 women have left the industry in the past two years, compared with just 750 men. Skillset also reported that women are finding freelance contracts and long hours incompatible with raising children.

He added that the issues of sexism and ageism had completely “slipped off the agenda”, because people in charge had assumed that they had been remedied years ago, and had moved on to concentrate on cultural diversity and the inclusion of people with disabilities.

Brixton-born City trader Robert Fucilla had succeeded in everything he had put his hand to, from selling oil to backing British hip-hop acts, and believed his Italian ancestry gave him a shot at being a British Al Pacino. Of course, millions dream of breaking into the movies, but what underpinned Fucilla’s ambition, friends and workmates agree, what made him stand out from every other fantasist and wannabe, was self-belief and a monumental ego.

With films like Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus and Snakes On a Train (yes, Train), production company The Asylum has cornered Hollywood’s bizarre ‘no-budget’ market

John Patterson, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 July 2009 22.00 BST

Jack Perez, the director of the evocatively (and accurately) titled Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus (released in cinemas on 7 August and on DVD on 10 August), is telling me how things go down in his part of the Hollywood forest, working for the super-low-budget quickie production-company The Asylum, which knocks out a new feature film every month, come rain or come shine. Read the rest of this entry →

Keanu has a beard. He sees a glowing orb. Unfortunately, the wind drowns him out as he says “Whooaa”.Keanu is now an Alien called Klatu. Since it begins with a K, Keanu won’t get confused. Jennifer Connelly is asked to sedate him. She pretends to, but doesn’t. However, since Keanu is playing the role, no one notices.